Do you
have some nagging questions about the Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov
problem? Are you curious about reproductive rights in Tanzania
or Uruguay? Do you want to know more about the accuracy of
eyewitness testimony? And is there the odd Poet Laureate youd
like to ask, Have you ever seen a tree as lovely as
a poem? If so, CUNY is the place for you. New Distinguished
Professorsthe Universitys highest academic rankeminently
equipped to help you out in these and several other fields
of research have just been named.

Nine nationally and internationally renowned scholars in seven
fieldsComputer Science, History, English, French, Criminal
Justice, Political Science, and Psychology were appointed
by the Board of Trustees at its June 25 meeting. Welcoming
the action, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein said, We are
very pleased to recognize the extraordinary contributions
of these dedicated scholars, writers and teachers. These appointments
are illustrative of the significant achievements of CUNY's
world-class faculty.

Four of these leaders in their field were recruited from other
institutions and will begin teaching this fall. The remaining
five new D.P.s are from within the University: two at
the Graduate Center and one each from Brooklyn, Hunter, and
Lehman Colleges.

The appointment of Lehman College professor of English Billy
Collins was thoroughly upstaged by the news, which broke four
days earlier, of his selection as the next Poet Laureate of
the United States (see story, page 3). Collins popularity
has soared over the last decade, with the appearance of eight
collections. The much- sought-after poet has been a member
of the Lehman College faculty since 1969. He earned a B.S.
at Holy Cross College and a Ph.D. at the University of California,
Riverside.

James
Fyfe, at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is considered
the nations leading scholar of the police, first coming
to attention in the field as co-author of Above the Law:
Police and the Excessive Use of Force. Seven books written
or co-written by him have since appeared. During a 16-year
career he rose from patrolman to commanding officer in the
NYPD. Fyfe arrives from his position as Professor of Criminal
Justice and a Senior Public Policy Research Fellow at Temple
University. He will be returning to his alma mater as a role
model for his students, having earned his B.S. at John Jay.
His M.A. and Ph.D in Criminal Justice are from SUNY, Albany.
For his latest research project, a comprehensive study of
dismissed police officers in New York City, he was allowed
access to 20 years of NYPD records, a privilege seldom given
to scholars.

The
work of Hunter College political scientist Rosalind Petchesky
on reproductive and sexual rights hasbrokennew ground and
significantly impacted international public policy. On the
Political Science and Womens Studies faculty since 1987,
Petchesky is the founder and international coordinator of
the International Reproductive Rights Research Action Group.
Both the U.S. and Canadian Supreme Courts have cited her work,
notably her first book, Abortion and Womens Choice:
The State, Sexuality and Reproductive Freedom. Petchesky
has won many honors and awards including a MacArthur Foundation
genius award. She earned her B.A. at Smith College
and her M.A and Ph.D. at Columbia University. Previously,
she taught at Bryn Mawr College, Ramapo College, Columbia
University, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Graduate Center historian David Nasaw is a leading exponent
of American cultural history. His most recent work, The
Chief, a biography of William Randolph Hearst, won the
Bancroft Prize and the J. Anthony Lucas Prize. His 1993 study,
Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusement, is
a major contribution to the history of recreation in America.
Also the author of Schooled to Order: A Social History
of Public Schooling in the United States and Children
of the City: At Work and At Play, Nasaw has taught at
the College of Staten Island since 1978 and served in the
Graduate Centers doctoral faculty since 1990 (he was
also Executive Officer). Nasaw earned a B.A. from Bucknell
University and his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Michael Cunningham, fiction writer and professor of English
at Brooklyn College, is author of The Hours, whichwon
the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999 and
is being made into a film starring Meryl Streep, Julianne
Moore and Nicole Kidman. He has also penned A Home at the
End of the World and Flesh and Blood and numerous
short stories. Cunningham has taught fiction writing in Columbia
Universitys M.F.A. program and this spring was the Donald
I. Fine Professor in Creative Writing in Brooklyn Colleges
M.F.A. program. A graduate of Stanford University, he earned
an M.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa Writers
Workshop.

Relinquishing an endowed chair at the University of Michigan
in French to come to the Graduate Center is Domna C. Stanton,
considered the preeminent scholar of her generation in 17th-century
studies. Over nearly 30 years, Stanton has achieved prominence
in early modern French studies, in womens studies, in
the human rights advocacy community, and in the Modern Language
Association (she was the first female editor of PMLA). She
is the author of seven influential books, her first, The
Aristocrat as Art: A Study of the Honnête Homme and
the Dandy in Seventeenth- and Nineteenth- Century French Literature,
and her newest, appearing this year, Women, Writ, Women
Writing: Gendered Discourse and Difference in Seventeeth-Century
France. She sits on the advisory committee to many womens
studies centers. Stanton has also taught at Rutgers University,
Harvard University, Barnard College, and Columbia College.

Sergei
N. Artemov, one of the worlds most influential researchers
in the field of logic in computer science, has taught since
1984 at Moscow State University, where he founded and directed
the renowned Local Problems of Computer Science Laboratory.
Joining the Computer Science Program at the Graduate Center,
Artemov was previously a Visiting Professor at Cornells
Mathematical Sciences Institute. Among his most significant
achievements are his solutions of both the Gödel and
the Brouwer-Heyting-Kolmogorov problems. His mentor was Andrei
Kolmogorov, the founder of modern probability theory, considered
one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century. Artemov
has authored more than 80 research papers and served as editor
of leading journals in his field. In mathematics, he earned
a Diploma with Perfection from Moscow State University and
a Ph.D. and Doctor of Sciences from the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Louis Menand, often described as a leading public intellectual,
has taught in the Graduate Centers Doctoral Program
in English since 1993 (hitherto he taught at Queens College,
Princeton, and Columbia). Menand also served for several years
on The New Yorker staff as a writer and literary editor. His
most recent book, The Metaphysical Club, has been enthusiastically
received. It is the first of a projected three-volume intellectual
history of America spanning the mid-19th through mid-20th
centuries. Menands other books include Discovering
Modernism: T.S. Eliot and his Context, The Future of Academic
Freedom, and Pragmatism: A Reader. He earned his B.A.
at Pomona College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Columbia University.

Previously
the Gallup Professor in Law and Psychology at the University
of Nebraska, Steven Penrod arrives at John Jay College as
one of the top figures nationally in the field of forensic
psychology. One of the most widely published and most cited
researchers in the history of psychology and law (and current
president of the American Psychology-Law Society), Penrods
research has included assessing the effects of pretrial publicity,
eyewitness identification, violence against women, and the
decision-making of juries. Work now in progress concerns the
attitudes of juries and attorneys to the death penalty. Penrod
earned his B.A. at Yale College, his J.D. at Harvard Law School,
and his Ph.D. at Harvard University.